Seattle Bike Blog

The new Fairview Ave Bridge should be a nexus for major bike routes

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

November 10, 2015

Base map: The Bicycle Master Plan.

The Fairview Ave N bridge is part of a major bike route hub, and major improvements and new connections on Westlake, Eastlake, 9th Ave N, Lakeview Blvd E and the 520 Bridge will only make it more important in the years ahead.

Now that Move Seattle has been approved (again, thank you Seattle voters!), the bridge replacement project is funded. If all goes according to plan, final design should be ready next summer and construction should begin in 2017.

You can learn more and have your say on the design at an open house 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. today (Tuesday) at the Cascade People’s Center (sorry for the late notice!).

This is the last timber-supported bridge in the city, a huge earthquake hazard that is past its useful life.

It is also where Brian Fairbrother died in 2011 after he apparently missed the turn onto the trail’s makeshift path and crashed on the stairs down to the floating walking path. The city has since installed barriers and signage to prevent a similar crash, but the larger problem remains: There is no properly-designed bike route to and across the bridge.

The initial design plans include a lot more space for separated bike lanes and sidewalks: (more…)

tags: eastlake, fairview ave n, sdot, south lake union

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Now that it’s partially funded, help guide major Mount Baker intersection remake

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

November 10, 2015

Looking west across Rainier and MLK from Mount Baker Boulevard.

You passed Move Seattle! Have I mentioned recently how great that is for our city?

Well, it’s already time to start directing the investment, starting with a major intersection that is the root of so many Southeast Seattle mobility problems: Rainier and MLK.

As we’ve reported previously, SDOT has a very promising and radical idea for fixing the problem, and you can weigh in on the biking and walking elements of the plan at an open house 6–8 p.m. Thursday at King’s Hall (behind Mount Baker light rail station).

Move Seattle includes $2 $6 million for the Accessible Mount Baker project, which is enough to make some small-but-significant fixes and work on the design for bigger changes. Thank you Seattle voters!

The crisscrossing intersection works poorly for everyone today. All the major vehicle movements mean long waits at red lights if you’re driving or biking in the general travel lanes, on the bus or waiting at a crosswalk. Even if you only care about vehicle movements, something dramatic needs to change here. But the problems go much further.

Access to Mount Baker Station and the new housing and businesses popping up around it is absolutely terrible because of this intersection. The extra-wide streets and extra-long signal cycles create dangerous conditions for people trying to cross the street on foot between buses, Mount Baker Station, businesses and Franklin High School. You don’t have to hang out long until you see someone make a run for it across Rainier because they don’t want to miss their bus. (more…)

tags: accessible mt baker, mt baker

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Road trip to save our state’s longest trail: Three meetings this month

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

November 9, 2015
The John Wayne Pioneer Trail (AKA the Iron Horse Trail) was one typo away from destruction this year. Not only do we need to protect it from another effort to give away the central half of the defunct rail right-of-way, but this should be a wake-up call to redouble our efforts as a state to develop it into the economic engine it could be.

The Tekoa Trail & Trestle Association has been working hard to keep pressure on their Representatives Mary Dye and Joe Schmick to drop the attempt to give the trail away and invest in it instead.

If you feel passionately about someday adventuring by bike through the heart of Washington State from Seattle to the Idaho border, you may want to plan a road trip to one of more of these listening sessions this month. The closest meeting to Seattle will be in Ellensburg November 23:
- Tuesday November 10^that 12pm: Rosalia, Community Center (7th St. and Whitman Ave.)
- Monday November 16^th at 12pm: Lind, Union Elevator Conference room (201 S Street)
- Monday November 23^rdat 6pm: Ellensburg, Hal Holmes Center (209 N Ruby St.)
Sadly, you can’t bike to the Ellensburg meeting, since the Snoqualmie Tunnel closed November 1 for the winter, according to a State Parks phone message.

If you can’t attend, you can email comments to [email protected].
tags: iron horse trail, joe schmick, john wayne pioneer trail, mary dye, tekoa, tekoa trail and trestle association

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Seattle just elected a bike-friendly Council and invested $400M into safe streets

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

November 5, 2015

In an odd-year election, Seattle invested at least $400 million into safe streets, and every City Council candidate endorsed by Seattle Bike Blog, Seattle Transit Blog, Seattle Subway or Cascade Bicycle Club appears on the verge of winning.

Urban cycling’s long existential crisis in Seattle is over. Bike lanes and safe streets are a core piece of our city and our politics. Putting walking, biking and transit first is mainstream policy now, and we have serious funding to back it up.

This is a landmark moment in a social movement to redefine streets as places focused on moving all people and goods rather than just being pipes for cars. Perhaps no other movement tracked so perfectly with the election results, as the Seattle Times noted.

For biking specifically, the cultural shift happened thanks to thousands of people all over our city (and many who have passed or moved away) working for years to make it happen: People biking on streets where nobody else dared go, people volunteering to teach bike repair in neighborhoods without bike shops, people organizing bike-to-school trains and inviting all their neighbors to join. No single organization, political leader or journalist can claim responsibility.

As of Wednesday evening’s count, the YES vote on the nine-year, $930 million Move Seattle levy has a 15-point lead. That’s for a bold measure that goes all-in on safe, vibrant and multimodal streets — a significant risk taken by city leaders in the Mayor’s Office, SDOT and the Council. It’s not just a ballot win, it’s a mandate. (more…)

tags: davey oil, move seattle, move seattle levy

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The true cost of Move Seattle

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

November 4, 2015

A memorial walk for Brian Fairbrother, September 2011. Friends used orange paint to mark the turn Brian apparently missed.

Mike Wang was biking home to his family one evening in July 2011 when a man driving an SUV made a quick left turn and killed him on Dexter Ave. It’s impossible to fill a hole in the world the size of Mike Wang, but through all the tears and pain and anger that followed, something truly powerful shifted in hearts across Seattle.

One month later, Brian Fairbrother was biking on a South Lake Union sidewalk marked as a city trail when he apparently missed the turn onto the Fairview Ave N bridge and crashed down a staircase. I have never seen anything as beautiful as the memorial his community of friends held for him, the response of creative people struggling to understand why Brian had to die.

But when young Robert Townsend was killed while biking deliveries in the U District just one month later, Seattle’s grief and pain and anger finally boiled over. It was too much. People shouldn’t die just for trying to get around our city. Whatever our society thinks we’re getting in return for all these deaths isn’t worth the horrible cost.

Not only can we end traffic violence, we realized, we have to.

That’s why the day after initial returns show the Move Seattle levy passing with a solid margin, I’m sitting at my keyboard trying to type this story through a stream of tears. The path from July 2011 to passing a measure that will invest at least $400 million into an unprecedented effort to end traffic violence — the amazing bloom of genuinely grassroots Seattle Neighborhood Greenways groups in all corners of our city, the Road Safety Summit that crafted our city’s first plan to end deaths and serious injuries, the remake of the Bike Master Plan that lays out the path to crafting safe streets for people of all ages and abilities — was paved by the lives of people who did not need to die. (more…)

tags: brian fairbrother, caleb shoop, judy and dennis schulte, mike wang, move seattle, move seattle levy, sher kung

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Bike News Roundup: Watch how ‘jaywalking’ became a crime

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

November 3, 2015

It’s time for the Bike News Roundup!

Don’t forget to vote! And whether you voted weeks ago or your ballot is still at home, you can join me for our first ever Procrastinator’s Voting Party, 5–6:30 p.m. at Chuck’s Hop Shop CD (20th/Union). We’ll then bike to the ballot box en route to the Move Seattle election party in Belltown (I’ll even deliver your ballot for you if you can’t join the ride).

Anyway, in mostly non-election news, here’s a look at some of the bikey stuff floating around the web recently. First up, here’s a great, short explanation of how the calculated derogatory term “jaywalking” became a crime:

(more…)

tags: bike news roundup

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